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Standish of Standish, a novel by Jane Goodwin Austin |
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Chapter 36. Marriage Bells |
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_ CHAPTER XXXVI. MARRIAGE BELLS "And now, Governor, we have to billet all these new-comers as best we may. Six-and-ninety names the captain of the Anne reports on his roster, and that fairly doubles the population of Plymouth. Where shall we bestow them all?" "Why, Captain, you know that many of our men expecting their wives and children have built housen and now will occupy them; and for the rest, I am minded, if you will have me, to impose myself upon you and Alden, and leave mine own house to Mistress Southworth and your cousin. Then, as the elder's daughters now have come, Priscilla Molines, whom my dame knoweth and loveth well, and Mary Chilton and Elizabeth Tilley can all find room here also, and the rest we will dispose of among the other families. Mayhap for a while the young men may sleep at the Fort." "Nay, Governor, we'll have no rantipoles at the Fort meddling and making among the ammunition, and playing tricks with the guns. Alden and you and I and Howland, and some other of the ancients, will swing our hammocks at the Fort if you will, and my house may be turned into a billet for the bachelors, until we can help them to knock up housen for themselves." "So be it, comrade, and yet 't is hardly worth while to make great changes or fatigues until"-- "Until?"-- "Until some among us are wed, Myles." "Why, truly yes. I had forgot, and yet I have heard the jingle of marriage bells in thy voice since ever yon ship rounded Manomet. How soon will it be, Will?" "So soon as my dame agreeth," replied Bradford contentedly. "At all odds before the Anne returneth. We have magistrates enow among us, however, for Master Oldham and Master Hatherly both carry the king's patent as justices; and this Master Lyford who cometh in Oldham's train is preacher in the Church of England." "Ha! Say you so, Will? One of the 'hireling priests' of such noisome odour in the nostrils of thy friends of the stricter sort at Leyden!" "Nay, Captain, but you will remember that Pastor Robinson did receive members of England's Church to the Lord's Table, and did counsel us to live in brotherly love and communion with them." "And so fell into disfavor with his old friends the Brownists," remarked Standish carelessly. "Well, 't is all one to me, who am no church member, and deny not due respect to the old faith of mine house. And you will be wed anon, Will?" "Ay, and we will have your Barbara to stay with us until she finds another home, if you and she consent. Dame Alice loves her passing well." "'T is a good wench and a comfortable one," replied Standish well pleased. "Had Rose lived, or had Priscilla said me yea, I had taken Barbara under mine own roof; but now I must wait until she makes her choice of the swains that soon will come a-wooing, and then she and her husband shall come to me." "Ay," returned Bradford musingly, and checking upon his lips the smile that danced in his eyes. "Thy plans are ever wisely laid, Myles." Turning into his own house Bradford found Alice with her wimple and scarf on just about to leave it. "Whither away, mistress?" asked he gayly. "Only to breathe a mouthful of fresh air, Master Governor. I have been so long ashipboard that four walls seem a prison to me. Mayhap I'll take passage back again with good Master Pierce." "Mayhap thou 'lt do naught of the sort. I have thee now, and I'll not let thee go, as I did sometime in Leyden." "Thou didst anger me sore, Will, when thou 'dst not close with that good man's offer of half his business, though it was but a merchant's. And my father crying up Edward Southworth"-- "Nay, Alice, we'll not go pulling open old wounds to see if they be healed. I would not, I could not do violence to my English name and blood and become a Dutch trader though it were to gain thy hand, nor did I think thou wouldst in thine anger go so far--but there, sweetheart, we'll say no more on 't, now or ever. God has been exceeding gracious in bringing us once more together, and we will not be ungrateful. Thy boys shall find a father in me, Alice, and should Elder May give me again my little John"-- "Nay, the boy is well with his grandsire in Leyden, and my Constant and Thomas must abide with their father's folk for a while. They would not part from me unless I left the boys for a year or two." "And still thou wouldst come, Alice." "Dost mind what words Ruth said to Naomi, Will?" "Truly do I, Alice." And as the two long-parted lovers looked deep into each other's eyes there needed no further speech to show that the long winter was over and the time of the singing of birds had come. Two weeks from the arrival of the Anne all Plymouth put on festal gear and merry faces. Good cheer abounded in place of famine, for the new-comers were well stored with provision, and although this was not turned into the common stock, those who had promising crops--and since the Fast Day there had been no stint of rain, and the corn promised marvelously well--could always obtain dry provisions for the promise of a share in the green meat when it should be gathered. And fitting it was that Plymouth should keep holiday, for not only was it the governor's marriage morn, but Priscilla Molines, whom all her townsfolk loved, was to become John Alden's wife; and as the two friends could not be parted, Mary Chilton had promised upon the day of Priscilla's marriage to give her hand to John Winslow, one of the Fortune's pilgrims and brother of Edward and Gilbert. Finally John Howland so strongly pleaded his cause before the elder and his wife that they consented to give him Elizabeth Tilley to wife, young though she was, and to allow him to take her to the pretty cottage he had built upon The Street, next to Stephen Hopkins's substantial house on the corner of The Street and the King's Highway. John Alden also had built a cottage between the captain's house and the governor's; and Eaton with his wife Lois was to share a house with Peter Browne, who had manfully assumed the charge of Widow Martha Ford and her three children. Christian Penn, a stalwart lass, passenger of the Anne, was to make one of the governor's family, and literally to be "help" to his wife in the duties of the household, while Mary Becket consented to fill the same place in Edward Winslow's home. Barbara, cordially invited both by Alice Southworth and by Priscilla to become their perpetual guest, laughingly accepted both invitations, saying to Priscilla,-- "When I find too much pepper in thy soup, Pris, I'll e'en go cool my tongue with Dame Alice's comfitures; and when I fancy one new-wed pair were as content without me, I'll e'en go and inflict myself upon t' other." "And the captain will keep house with only Hobomok," said Priscilla dubiously. "Nay, Kit Conant is to 'bide with them, and do certain service, and I shall still be in and out," said Barbara briskly. "Like enough the most they eat will be of my brewing. We shall do well enow for the captain. But, Priscilla, what ailed thee not to wed him, since his comfort sits so nigh thy heart?" "Why, 't is but Christian to pity them who are in need, yet none can wed with more than one man at a time, and from the first I knew that John Alden was the one for me. Wed him thyself, Barbara, and send Kit Conant about his business." A sudden color surged all over Barbara's face, and the wonderful eyes shot out an angry spark, but after a moment she quietly said,-- "Myles and I have ever been more like brother and sister than cousins. His mother was all as one with mine own." "Ay, and so it is. Yes, yes, I see," said Priscilla hurriedly, but when Barbara had left her she stood for many minutes drumming on the table, and thoughtfully gazing through the open door at the blue wonder of the sea. And now the wedding day had come, a glorious golden summer day, and some of the older folk, whose habits of early life held rigidly to the soil since planted anew to a Separatist crop, remembered that it was Lammas Day. One of these was Elizabeth, Master Warren's new-come wife, and as she looked abroad in the early morning, she sighed a bit and said,-- "A year agone, Richard, I looked upon another guess sort of scene than this. The church bells were ringing and the people trooping in, and many was the goodwife who brought her loaf baked of the first-fruit wheat to offer it for the parson's table if not for the Communion"-- "Nay wife, nay, remember Lot's wife," chided the husband, already so far upon his way to that abode of Light where shall be no Separatism and no uncharity. As all the world would fain be present at one or the other of the four marriages, it was concluded that they should be held in the open air, and the captain with much enthusiasm directed the spreading of an open tent, or, more properly, a canopy upon the greensward stretching across the King's Highway from Bradford's house to Hopkins's. This completed, and the military band paraded ready to salute the governor upon his arrival, Standish stood aside, wiping his brow, and looking jovially about him at the tables already spread with the wedding feast, which was thriftily to take the place of the villagers' ordinary dinner. "A cheerful and a refreshing season, Captain," said a staid voice at his elbow. "Ay," replied Standish briefly and with something of the good-humor gone from his face, for he had no great love for Isaac Allerton, Assistant of the Governor, and one of the principal men of the colony, though he was. "Methinks you and I might be principals instead of spectators at some such solemnity, and offend no law of God or man." "I know no law against your being wed if it pleases you, Master Allerton," replied the soldier briefly. "No--no, as you justly say, no law, Captain, and truth to tell I had it in my mind to speak to you this morning"-- "To me, to me!" exclaimed the captain, wheeling round and staring at the smooth face and narrow figure of the assistant. "Dost fancy that I am a pretty maid hid within a buff jerkin?" "Ha! ha! Our good captain still must have his joke. Nay then, in sober earnest my dear brother, your cousin, Mistress Barbara Standish, doth much commend herself to my mind as a discreet and godly maiden, notable in household ways, and of a mild and biddable nature. I fain would have her to wife, Standish, if I may do so with your consent." "Nay now, Master Allerton, your eyes are keener after a good chance for trucking than ever a pair in the colony, and I'm not saying that the governor could find a better assistant in his weighty affairs of State, but you've no more eye for a gentlewoman's good qualities than I have for a peddler's. 'Mild and biddable,' forsooth! Those virtues were left out when they brewed the Standish blood, Master Allerton, and courage and honor and some other trifles thrown in to make amends. Why man, should you wed Barbara Standish and raise a hand upon her as I've seen you do upon your daughters, woman-grown, I'd not answer but she'd have your life's blood for it; and if you bade her stint the measure of the corn she sold to your neighbors, she'd quit your roof and you, before you could say whiskerando! No, no, Master Allerton, best not try to mate yourself with a Standish. No luck would come on 't I promise you." "Methinks, Captain Standish," replied the councilor smoothly, although his pale face had taken a livid cast harmonizing with a green light in his narrow eyes,--"methinks you take over much upon yourself in this our land of liberty and God-given rights. Why should you decide so absolutely for Mistress Standish? Why may not she speak her own mind. She at least has no narrow and ignorant prejudice against me, unless indeed you have already instilled it into her mind." "Nay now, Allerton, dost in sober sadness suppose that in meeting my kinswoman after a five years' parting I chose you as my theme of discourse? As for the rest, I lay no constraint upon Mistress Standish. Speak to her if you will and as soon as you will, but tell her all the story, tell her of your grown children, and of your years"-- "They are no more than yours," sharply interrupted the councilor. "Did I say they were? Well, speak to her I say--ha, here come the brides. Now trumpets!" And as the trumpets blew a joyous fanfare and the drums and fife burst forth in a blithe jargon intended for the good old tune of Haste to the Wedding, out from the door of the governor's house came Bradford leading Alice Southworth, fair and delicate and sweet, yet with a little air of state about her, as one who had already known the honors of matronhood and now was called to become the wife of a ruler. Next came Priscilla, dressed in a fair white gown trimmed with old Flemish lace at which Mistress Winslow looked askance, her rich color a little subdued, and a somewhat tremulous curve to her ripe lips, while the great brown eyes were filled with a dreamy haze not far from tears. She was wedding the man of her love, but she stood all alone beside him, this brave yet tender-hearted Priscilla of ours,--she stood alone, and she thought of her mother, the mother so loved, so mourned, so near to that faithful heart to-day. Then came well-born, well-nurtured John Winslow and Mary Chilton, the fair English May whose sweet blossoms are ever upheld by such a sturdy and healthy stock, ay, and are protected by substantial thorns from meddling fingers even while its fragrance is graciously shed abroad for all the world to glory in. And last of all came John Howland, that "lusty yonge man" who on the voyage had been washed overboard and carried fathoms deep beneath the sea, yet by his courage and endurance survived the ordeal, and lived to found one of the chiefest Plymouth families. By the hand he led Elizabeth Tilley, a sweet slip of a girl, with true and loving eyes ever and anon glancing proudly at the stalwart form of the only man she ever loved, and yet never thought to win. Four noble and comely couple pacing through the grassy street and taking their places under the canopy where Elder Brewster, a magistrate, if not an ordained minister, stood beside a little table whereon was laid the colony's first Record Book brought by the Anne, and now to be used for the first time, for hitherto the "scanty annals of the poor" settlement had been kept in Governor Bradford's note-book, now alas lost to posterity. The simple ceremony was soon over, and as the Separatists denied themselves the privilege of a religious service lest some taint of Papistry might lurk therein, Elder Brewster closed his magisterial office with a prayer in which Isaac and Rebecca were not forgotten, and about which hung a curious flavor of the Church of England service so familiar to the elder's youth. "Priscilla! Mine at last! My very own," whispered John Alden in his bride's ear as the group broke up and all the world pressed in to offer congratulations. "There, there, John, if thou hast but just discovered that notable fact I'll leave thee to digest it while I go to see that the dinner is served as it should be." _ |
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